swallow considerable
quantities of milk, or rather cream, which I hoped would not make her
ill. I had chatted with the wounded Zulus, who were now walking about,
more bored even than I was myself, and heaping maledictions on their
ancestral spirits because they had not been well enough to take part in
the battle against Rezu.

I even took a little stroll to look for Hans, who had vanished in his
mysterious fashion, but the afternoon was so hot and oppressive with
coming thunder, that soon I came back again and fell into a variety of
reflections that I need not detail.

While I was thus engaged and meditating, not without uneasiness, upon
the ordeal that lay before me after sunset, for I felt sure that it
would be an ordeal, Hans appeared and said that the Amahagger _impi_
or army was gathered on that spot where I had been elected to the proud
position of their General. He added that he believed--how he got this
information I do not know--that the White Lady was going to hold a
review of them and give them the rewards that they had earned in the
battle.

Hearing this, Umslopogaas and the other Zulus said that they would like
to see this review if I would accompany them. Although I did not want to
go nor indeed desired ever to look at another Amahagger, I consented to
save the trouble of argument, on condition that we should do so from a
distance.

So, including the wounded men, we strolled off and presently came to the
crumbled wall of the old city, beyond which lay the great moat now dry,
that once had encircled it with water.

Here on the top of this wall we sat down where we could see without
being seen, and observed the Amahagger companies, considerably reduced
during the battle, being marshalled by their captains beneath us and
about a couple of hundred yards away. Also we observed several groups
of men under guard. These we took to be prisoners captured in the fight
with Rezu, who, as Hans remarked with a smack of his lips, were probably
awaiting sacrifice.

I said I hoped not and yawned, for really the afternoon was intensely
hot and the weather most peculiar. The sun had vanished behind clouds,
and vapours filled the still air, so dense that at times it grew almost
dark; also when these cleared for brief intervals, the landscape in the
grey, unholy light looked distorted and unnatural, as it does during an
eclipse of the sun.

Goroko, the witch-doctor, stared round him, sniffed the air and then
remarked